Stana Katic (; born ) is a Canadian-American actress and producer. She played Kate Beckett on the ABC television romantic crime series Castle (2009–2016) and FBI Special Agent Emily Byrne in the psychological thriller series Absentia (2017–2020). Early life Katic was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. In describing her ethnicity, she has stated "My parents are Serbs from Croatia. I call us Dalmatian because that's the part of the planet that we are originally from. I have Serb, Croat and even a handful of Montenegrin family members." Her father is from Vrlika, Croatia, and her mother is from the surrounding area of Sinj, Croatia. Katic later moved with her family to Aurora, Illinois. She spent the following years moving back and forth between Canada and the United States. After graduating from West Aurora High School in 1996, Katic enrolled to study International Relations, Economics and pre-law at the University of Toronto's Trinity College and then at The Theatre School at DePaul University, where she studied toward an MFA in acting from 2000 to 2002. Katic studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse acting school. She has four brothers and one sister. Career Katic played Hana Gitelman in Heroes, Collette Stenger in 24s season five, and Jenny in the film Feast of Love starring Morgan Freeman. She also played Morgenstern in Frank Miller's film The Spirit, Canadian Intelligence agent Corrine Veneau in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace (though she was originally up for the role of Strawberry Fields in the film), and Simone Renoir in the third installment of The Librarian franchise, The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice. In August 2008, ABC announced acquisition of the television series Castle, starring Katic as Kate Beckett and Nathan Fillion as Richard Castle. In 2008, Katic established her own production company, Sine Timore Productions, which is Latin for "without fear". BuddyTV named Katic as Kate Beckett in Castle as No. 24 on its list of "TV's 100 Sexiest Women of 2009", No. 39 in 2010, No. 1 in 2011, No. 8 in 2012 and No. 12 in 2013; No. 6 on its list of "The 15 Best Drama Lead Actresses of the 2011–2012 TV Season"; named her character's relationship with the title character as No. 18 (and the Best Flirting Relationship) on its list "Love Is All Around: Best TV Relationships of 2010", No. 13 (and the Best Delayed Relationship) on